After the Weston field hockey team finished the 2009 season with a 6-8 record, few could have predicted the end result of the 2010 campaign after the Lady Trojans had a squad predominantly composed of juniors and seniors.

There is more than one reason why Weston finished with a mark of 2-13-1, but the biggest simply comes down to the team's inability to score goals. The Lady Trojans gave up 36 goals, while only finding the nets themselves eight times. Their biggest offensive came production came in a 2-1 road victory at Immaculate on Sept. 23.

"We had a great defense this year," defender Cathy Frederickson, who served as a captain along with goaltender Katie Maretz and forward Karja Karwowski. "It was just putting that ball in the goal was a little difficult."

"When you have so many losses it's mostly a defensive team, so we played a lot defense year. That part of the team really stepped up,"

Donigian said. "The area where we struggled was scoring.... We really didn't have a forward who stepped up and we could count on."

Weston's leading scorer came from an unlikely source. With five games left in the season, senior defender Becky O'Brien asked Donigian if she could play farther up the field.

"She said `I bet I could score if you put me up there.' We did the next game. We were like `What did we have to lose at this point?'... And we put here up there and she did it," Donigian said.

O'Brien, one of eight seniors on the team, ended up scoring three goals over the next three games. Her first came in a 1-0 victory at Brookfield on Oct. 14.

This past offseason about 20 team members attended a camp at the University of Connecticut. Another group took part in a winter indoor league in Newtown. Those experiences, coupled with the amount of veterans who were returning encouraged Donigian and the rest of the coaching staff to start the team off advanced drills--instead of placing a heavier emphasis on the game's fundamentals.

"I think I took it for granted that the improvements that we made as a team last year and that the kids put the extra time in by themselves out of season would have translated to a higher level of play this year and more goals scored," she said.

Donigian is hoping that either sophomore Julia Armijo or junior Hannah Goodman can become the go-to player at the forward that her team was in dire need of all season--or in her words-- a person that we know if we gave the ball to that player she would put it in the goal." Armijo was second in scoring with two goals, while Goodman lead the team in assists with four. A pair of junior midfielders, Tess Fagan and Maggie McCusker, should also help push the ball up the field.

Next year, the defense will be anchored by Kelly Quinn, who led the team in interceptions.

The seniors don't have the luxury of thinking about next season, but they have not shown any signs of a defeatist attitude. That group also includes midfielder Sarah O'Brien (Becky's twin sister), forward wing Bonnie Guthrie, forward wing Claire Dwyer and forward Sarah Cohen.

"I came out happy with the season," said Frederickson, who finished with a second-best 68 interceptions. "Our record doesn't do justice to our team. We were very close every game.... I feel proud of what we accomplished."

"I guess I'd say that overall it was a good season if we don't look at our record. We worked hard in practices," Karwowski said. "We attempted to incorporate them into the games."

Maretz, who made 80 saves out of the 111 shots she faced, and Karwowski pointed out how many games were decided by one goal. For the record, that happened seven times--including Weston's two victories.

"We walked off the field feeling like we accomplished something because we played to the best of our ability," Maretz said of those games.

"It was usually that the end of the game where it would it be like that lucky goal that got in," Karwowski added.

The Lady Trojans hope that luck will be on their side next season.

Stick notes: Fredrickson was a First Team All-SWC selection. Becky and Sarah O'Brien were selected All-Patriot Division.